Economy

Good Morning America's Jake Tapper on Tuesday spun Barack Obama's reaction to a tax deal with Republicans this way: "The devil made him do it..." The devil, apparently, being GOP representatives. Picking an easy target as an example, Tapper asserted that, as a result of tax rates staying the same, the "family of the average Wall Street banker [who] paid more than $300,000 last year, will keep…

The Washington Post's Robert J. Samuelson in his Monday column scolded President Obama's deficit commission in a fashion that should be must-reading for every American, especially liberal media members. At issue for Samuelson wasn't the cost-saving or revenue-generating ideas in the plan. Instead, he accurately pointed out that it lacked a coherent message as to why our social programs are…

Charles Krauthammer on Monday said that when Barack Obama spoke to the nation hours ago to announce a tax extension compromise just reached with Republicans, "It was actually a speech addressed at Daily Kos, the New York Times, and MoveOn." In Krauthammer's view expressed on Fox's "Special Report," "This was a speech aimed at appeasing the Left which is extremely angry over this" (video…

World News anchors and reporters on Sunday chided Barack Obama from the left, complaining that he was "caving" and "breaking one of his biggest campaign promises" by preventing tax rates from increasing in January. ABC's Washington editor Rick Klein worried, "President Obama has been clear this was a critical position and he is caving on it, in, in allowing all the tax cuts to be extended."…

At the Associated Press late Sunday afternoon, reporter Paul Wiseman, who may have the most inappropriate last name in the history of business journalism, engaged in a brazen "It's really not that bad" excuse-making exercise on behalf of the economy Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Ben Bernanke have created. In the process, he joined a Reuters reporter in questioning the validity of…

 During a discussion of the agreement to prevent tax rates from increasing in January, on ABC’s World News Sunday, anchor David Muir and ABC’s senior Washington correspondent Rick Klein fretted that the federal budget deficit would increase - against the wishes of the voters - as a result of both the blocking of a tax increase and the extension of unemployment benefits. But neither acknowledged…

I do hope that Associated Press reporters Arthur Max and Charles J. Hanley are finding some recreational time while they are reporting from Cancun about what's happening at the "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." The pair's bosses ought to be asking them how much real attention they are paying to the festivities since they began. For example, as far as I can tell from two…

The unemployment rate jumped to a seasonally adjusted 9.8% in November and only 39,000 seasonally adjusted jobs were added during the month, according to the Employment Situation Report released yesterday by Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although she at least recognized the report's negativity, Lucia Mutikani at Reuters seemed bent on downplaying its impact, even finding an "expert…

Shortly after the Labor Department announced a very disappointing jump in the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, Google News featured as its top story an Associated Press article published Thursday predicting "the tight job market may be easing at last." Here's a screen cap of Google News from about an hour ago:

The unemployment rate rose in November, from 9.6 percent up to 9.8 percent after only 39,000 jobs were added to the workforce. On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Mark Haines of CNBC called the data "disappointing." Haines went on to say, "An optimist or a sunny 'glass is half full' kind of person would say the unemployment rate may have ticked up because more people are now looking for work. That'…

The Washington Post has added a new conservative blogger to its stable, one that NewsBusters readers should be familiar with. Only three days into her new position, Jennifer Rubin has made it clear she has no intention of toning down her criticism of mainstream media darlings like New York Times columnist David Brooks:

Here's something about which the environmentalists and car czars planted inside the Obama administration can't be pleased: as a percentage of their U.S. sales, Multi-Government/General Motors and Chrysler are selling more "light trucks," consisting of pickups, SUVS, and "crossover" vehicles than any other major manufacturer. Further, the companies are clearly emphasizing light trucks at the…

A worried George Stephanopoulos on Thursday again pushed for Republicans to accept some sort of Democratic compromise on extending unemployment benefits and the Bush tax cuts. The Good Morning America host even hit a Republican Congressman for his "double standard" on the issue. Stephanopoulos interviewed incoming House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp and Democratic Congressional Campaign…

Do a media company's political activities affect the way its subsidiaries report the news? The folks at MSNBC sure think so. That channel's hosts have insisted ad nauseum that Fox News parent company News Corporation's political actives compromise the ability of Fox to report the news fairly and accurately. But MSNBC has, as I have noted before, shilled for policies that would enrich its…